I used to be charmed by a wierd little gaming system earlier this 12 months at CES 2022. The WowCube is actually a digital Rubik’s Cube with 24 screens. Players can twist it to play puzzle video games or put a picture onto it and use it as a neat little dwelling dialog piece.
It comes at a time the place we’re seeing plenty of online game devices exterior of the same old console giants. The Steam Deck is revolutionizing how gamers entry PC video games, the Analogue Pocket is a must-own for gamers with plenty of previous handheld video games, and the crank-controlled Playdate is so unusual that it’s captured the curiosity of the gaming world. The WowCube exists in that very same area as a tool that fuses toys, online game consoles, and tech devices into one system.
When I sat down with Max Filin, the CEO of WowCube creator Cubios, it instantly grew to become clear that the black field is greater than a cute gimmick. It’s an incredibly spectacular technical feat that might form the world in some very surprising methods sooner or later.
Twist it
The most stunning factor concerning the WowCube is that it deftly delivers on its wild pitch. The system is a dense black field made up of eight cubes, with 4 screens on all sides. When you hearth it up, every display lights up with a special app icon. Tap on one and the screens will gentle up with a tactile sport that’s managed by twisting.
Many of the present video games obtainable on it at current are easy. In one sport, gamers transfer a ball across the dice, accumulating factors. Rotating the dice creates totally different pathways for the ball to maneuver by means of. Another title is a 3D model of 2048, a puzzle sport the place gamers match numbers till they multiply as much as 2048. The latter is what I ended up spending essentially the most time with, because it’s a tactile twist on an already addictive puzzler.
While the present model works and not using a hitch, it took time to nail down easy methods to piece it collectively. The unique prototype of the system was a lot much less sleek than the present model. It was a a lot bulkier field with thick plastic bordering every display. It was a low-resolution system with Arduino CPUs packed inside. As you may think, although, getting a rotating dice of screens to work was no simple job. It would require an inventor’s contact.
“You can’t put one CPU, one battery, and one motherboard in and then wire them to 24 screens. There’s nothing on Earth that can support 24 screens at the same time as you change the geometry,” Filin says. “The core of our project was to make the modules absolutely autonomous.”
I used to be genuinely shocked when Filin disassembled the system fully, breaking it down into particular person cubes that also displayed visuals aside from the remainder of the parts. The crew had basically discovered a method to create eight computer systems that might join to one another by way of magnets and cost on one dock. Theoretically, the WowCube might be damaged all the way down to its parts and reassembled as a flat 4×2 display or actually any form. Filin describes it as “the operating system for toys,” likening what they’ve created to tech that powers sensible gadgets like automobiles and fridges.
“It’s way more than just a hardware toy; it’s the distribution of eight autonomous computers, and this technology is behind it,” Filin says.
Beyond gaming
While the crew at Cubios will develop its personal apps and video games for the system, anybody will have the ability to create their very own. The firm even employed one 20-year-old developer after she made a magic eight-ball app the place customers may ask the dice a query and twist it to get a solution. The solely purpose WowCube isn’t broadly open to builders but is as a result of the crew isn’t sufficiently big but to maintain up with the demand from devs.
As far as gaming gadgets go, it would sound somewhat area of interest — and it’s. But like lots of new tech, the WowCube is just beginning with video video games, as a result of it’s a tried-and-true method to convey customers in and a method to keep centered. When Filin begins speaking concerning the wider potential for the tech, his creativeness begins twisting round just like the system itself.
“In 2019, I met a friend of mine who owns a clinic for people who are injured in car accidents,” Filin says. “He said ‘You have a device that could potentially be a super puzzle where you can change the difficulty.’ We could give puzzles to patients who want to recover from a head injury. We can put white here and white here. No buttons. You twist, you connect, it blinks, very easy. It’s brain development.”
It’s far more than only a {hardware} toy; it’s the distribution of eight autonomous computer systems, and this expertise is behind it.
Filin goes on to listing a number of extra potential use instances, like serving to children with autism or adults with Alzheimer’s illness. He lists a number of verticals that Cubios is pursuing, a few of that are stunning. One long-term undertaking has the crew centered on early childhood growth. Another may see the system getting used as a controller for sensible dwelling gadgets.
Open-source prospects
Of course, some latest buzzwords come up within the dialog too.
“The cube is what I call the perfect depot for your NFT collection,” Filin says, utilizing the system’s aquarium-like show app as a possible instance. “It shows your art. Or you could buy those fish or sell them like an NFT. You can breed them! I take one module with a fish and put it to another cube. They breed, I have a unique fish. It appears here in the aquarium.”
Filin says that the corporate already has the white label (a services or products produced by one firm that different firms rebrand) for concepts like that, and lots of extra. However, it’s not shifting on them but because it desires to stay centered on the gaming side for now. Considering that it’s an open-source platform, although, consumers received’t have the identical limitations at launch. They’ll have entry to eight autonomous computer systems that may work together with each other.
Filin hopes to get gadgets into individuals’s arms by Christmas, although the present part scarcity has a means of wreaking havoc on a tool made up of eight computer systems. If all goes properly, individuals will have the ability to begin pre-ordering it beginning in April in a lot of the world. Folks within the U.S. might have to attend somewhat longer, although Filin notes that some distribution plans are within the works, with “soft confirmations” from some huge retailers.
The WowCube might not change your PlayStation 5, but when Cubios’ lofty aspirations come to fruition, it may turn into a multitool for the fashionable period.
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